Calcutta, Sept. 19: India’s first private Fortune 500 company was born today as the Registrar of Companies of Gujarat and Maharashtra gave approval to the merger of Reliance Petroleum with its principal, Reliance Industries.

Reliance said in a release, the merger was consummated today, and will be effective retrospectively from April 1, 2001. The board of the combined entity will meet on September 30 to consider the consolidated results of the two companies in 2001-02, and recommend dividend.

The Bombay Stock Exchange is expected to suspend trading in the Reliance Petroleum stock from October 9. The registrar of shareholders of Reliance Petroleum will close on October 19 to determine shareholders eligible to receive shares of Reliance Industries in lieu of their shares in the subsidiary.

The swap ratio for the merger has been fixed at one share of Reliance Industries for 11 shares of Reliance Petroleum.

The combined turnover of the two companies is in excess of Rs 60,000 crore and profits over Rs 4,600 crore annually. Reliance Petroleum was the largest private company in terms of sales. It was second only to its parent Reliance Industries in terms of net profit, assets and net worth. Their combined assets are more than Rs 60,000 crore.

PTI adds: The Department of Company Affairs (DCA) will hear tomorrow the plea of Reliance group companies seeking one-time payment of fine through compounding of offences detected by the government in their accounts.

The accounts of Reliance Industries and its group firms were investigated earlier this year for suspected diversion of money raised through the public issue for the Jamnagar refinery.

Reliance today said its group companies had complied with all the laws and was co-operating with DCA in its investigation of accounts. If Reliance’s application for compunding of offences is accepted, the charges would be dropped on payment of the fine.

DCA probed the account of Reliance group companies under section 209 of the Companies Act following allegations from Bahujan Samajwadi Party MP Rashid Alvi that the group had diverted funds mopped up from a public issue through Reliance Industries.